Collection 1: The Stuff of Nightmares
by Alexandria-likethecityinEgypt
Summary: This uncomfortable collection of nightmares has yet to receive their own stories. I may write them later, or not. Although these begin with Dick, I will post bad dreams from the entire Bat Family, even Alfred's. Some are short; some not so much. I will add to them periodically. Review your reactions & tell me if the excerpts should be expanded on. Rating may change later.
1. Belly Laughs

**This is the first. In some entries, following these scenes, I may include some background ideas that came with its creation. Some have a little DaddyBats! tossed in at the end of them while others might not. A second nightmare will be posted this weekend sometime . . .**

 **" Belly Laughs"**

 **Warning: Disturbing imagery . . .**

* * *

Dick awoke to the sounds of his own screams.

It wasn't his usual nightmare . . . How he could ever describe that dream as usual, he didn't know, but this one was somehow worse . . . Somehow . . .

The white face with the wildly-grinning, blood-red mouth hovered in front of his eyes. The eyes seemed hollow of anything sane; of anything . . . human! Instead something else stared out at him; something sick, evil. Its acrid stench rose to sting his nostrils; a combination of ammonia from urine and of bowel, of Sulphur, of sweat, and fear. It made his stomach roil.

Yet beneath the odor was something else . . . something rotten?

Dick looked down at his stomach and cringed at the sight of blackened intestines spilling out of an opening in his abdomen. The jagged slash was curved; shaped into a sickening parody of the clown's disturbing grin.

He screamed.

* * *

His eyes snapped open to find himself back in the relative safety of his own room. Dick's hands scrambled to tear open his pajama top. He ran his hands over his stomach in panic. His eyes widened at the half-moon scar and the ugly, black stitches that kept it closed. It was just like in the dream.

Dick screamed.

The door burst open and Bruce ran in. Panic and fear replaced any semblance of self-control. He didn't care if he appeared to him as a mewling infant. His dream had been real. His dream had been real!

Dick held his arms up in desperation. The stitches pulled and burned. He thought it should be hurting worse, and the thought that he must be pumped full of painkillers fluttered through the back of his mind.

"Sh, easy," Bruce crooned as he sat beside the boy on the bed. He tried to be gentle, but Dick was having none of it. The boy practically crawled into Bruce's lap. He would have crawled into Bruce's skin if he could.

"It's real," Dick cried. "It really happened! _Noooo_!"

* * *

Bruce came running at the sound of Dick's terrified scream. He had been expecting it, actually, but when the boy had seemed to be deeply under with the drugging effect of the painkillers, he had hoped to have just a few minutes to shower.

Somehow, the boy's blood had managed to seep beneath his costume and stained his skin. He needed to get it off of him; been desperate to be clean of Dick's life blood.

Now he was sitting on the edge of the bed with naught but a towel and the tatters of his dignity. The boy was grasping at him; his dilated eyes open, but he was obviously still caught up in whatever nightmare had him in its clutches.

"Dick! Dick, wake up, son," Bruce begged him. Whatever the dream contained must be truly horrifying.

* * *

Dick suddenly jerked awake with a gasp. His hands clawed at his pajama top; ripping buttons and sending them scattering and skittering across the bed and floor. His fingers slid over the smooth, nearly-unblemished skin of his abdomen as he gaped in bewilderment. He was bruised, yes, but the only marks he could find were the scar from the surgery he had received for an appendicitis from last year and one he had gotten from some third-rate mugger's lucky shot.

There was no sickening grin carved into him; no black stitches holding back rotting intestines . . . A dream? It was a dream within a dream of something that hadn't happened? What was wrong with him?

Dick clambered into Bruce's arms and clung to him. His hysteria was well and truly in force. He was weeping and hyperventilating. Black spots threatened to drive him back into the dream and Dick clutched at Bruce's damp shoulders in an effort not to fall into the terrifying darkness of his mind again.

"Sh . . . It's okay now," Bruce crooned; rocking him. "I've got you. It's over! No one can hurt you now."

* * *

 **REACTIONS?**

 **Don't you hate these kind of dreams . . . The ones where you dreaming about having a nightmare, only to dream that you woke up, and the nightmare goes on? Bleh!**

 **Anyway, I just sat down one evening and wrote this one out. All I know for sure is that young Robin had a close encounter with Joker (his first?) and got hurt, but not the kind of hurt he dreams about - Thank Goodness! How would you explain a huge grin carved on your stomach while changing for gym class?**

 **Okay, now that I creeped you out, pleasant dreams . . . Bwahahaha!**

 **Oh, hey! I have a poll going on at the top of my profile about a second collection, but this one will be of deleted scenes and excerpts not used in some of my other published stories. If you are interested in seeing some of the ways these stories might have gone before I came to my senses, then vote "YES", if not then vote "NO", and if you're just "EH, WHATEVER" there is an option for you as well. That's right! Everyone can vote - even those who have no opinion one way or the other. :D**


	2. Bad Son

**"Bad Son"**

 **Warning: Disturbing imagery . . .**

* * *

Dick stood frozen as he watched his parents fall. The sickening sounds that followed were loud in his ears; the thud of their bodies hitting the unforgiving ground, bones snapping. He was surprised he didn't fall as he raced down the ladder from the platform he had been standing on as he had waited for his turn on the trapeze. As he approached the contorted bodies, he hesitated.

A puddle of blood was forming beneath each of them. As he watched, horrified, the two puddles combined and began to slowly flow away from them; towards him. It resembled a kind of macabre, slow-moving river as it made its way through the sawdust; picking up some of the flakes and dust as it went. So much blood!

As it drew closer to him, Dick stepped back to avoid touching it, but it kept coming, so he stepped back again. And again. And again.

He frowned. There was so much of it; _too_ much! It continued to flow in a straight line, so as it neared him the next time, Dick stepped aside out of the way. Impossibly, the blood shifted course until it was following him once again. Dick stepped the other way, but the blood reversed; moving back in his direction!

Afraid now, Dick climbed over the center ring. The blood pooled where it hit the ring, but then, as Dick watched, it seeped underneath the heavy ring. He ran to the empty bleacher and climbed halfway up, but the blood didn't stop. It became a lake beneath the metal stand and suddenly, as if the ground became quicksand beneath them, the bleachers began to sink.

Down, down until Dick was standing on the top with nowhere to go. The lake had widened to such a degree that he wasn't sure he could leap across it, but he couldn't stay here. When the blood was now inches from his feet, Dick bent his knees and pushed off with all of the strength that his eight year old body had in him. He fell short by a mere foot.

The blood of his parents splashed up; splattering him, getting in his eyes, his face, his hair. Unfortunately, like the bleachers, he too, began to sink. Dick struggled to lift his feet out of the thick, red mire, but it clung to him like glue. Worse! It wasn't satisfied waiting for him to sink beneath its surface. No, the blood began to creep up his legs; wrapping itself around him and tugging him down faster.

Dick clawed the ground, trying to get some hold, some purchase in which he could drag himself out and be free of it, but there was nothing! Just sawdust and dirt. He was in waist deep and still it kept rising.

 _Why_? This was his parents' blood! Why was it trying to drag him under? To drown him? Was he supposed have died with them on the trapeze? Were they determined to draw him into the grave with them as well?

Dick loved his parents! He missed them so much . . . Would give anything to have them back, but he was quickly discovering that he didn't want to join them! He didn't _want_ to die!

The blood was up to his chest and clinging to his arms; reaching upwards towards his face! It had substance! It had weight! It didn't feel wet, but heavy! It clawed its way to his chin and was trying to push its way into his mouth! It was going to consume him; fill him up and suffocate him from the inside out . . .

He tasted the tangy coppery flavor of blood and finally . . . finally, Dick opened his mouth, but it was too late to scream!

* * *

He hit the floor with a thud; his forehead thumping hard against the Aubusson rug that was far too expensive to be gracing the room of an almost nine year old boy. He was so entangled in his covers that he had had no hope of catching himself.

Startled, head ringing, Dick blinked as he took in details of his bedroom that he had been assigned by Alfred at the manor in the twilight provided by the nightlight across the room.

A dream! It had only been a dream . . . It had been a recurring one, but he never seemed to remember that while in the midst of it. Each time he had it, the blood had chased him farther. It had caught him a couple of nights ago, but never had it gotten so far before!

He struggled to free himself from his sheets and sat up. He frowned when he tasted copper. Touching his lip, he realized he had bitten it at some point; maybe when he fell out of bed. Climbing to his feet, he discovered that he was shaking still. He sat in the upholstered chair and drew up his feet; burying his face in his knees.

He had never been frightened of his parents before, but the dream had been really scary. Tears flowed down his face as he tried to think of what it meant. Were they mad at him because he had hesitated before jumping? He had never before missed his cue until that night. The unraveling of the wire had caught his attention though, and then it had snapped on the very next swing! Both of his parents had fallen to the ground.

Dick had missed his cue . . . He frowned when he considered that. He _should_ have been out there with them when they fell. He had been meant to die with them!

Dick remembered the words that Bruce had told him that day at the lake a few months before; that his parents wanted him to be happy . . . He had believed him at the time. But now, this dream . . . It made him doubt Bruce's words to him for the first time.

Maybe _that's_ why this nightmare had been returning every night. His parents were mad at him! Dick remembered, however, kneeling beside their broken bodies and seeing the look of fear frozen on their faces. It had scared him. No, he didn't want to die; not then and not now.

So . . . did this make him a **_bad_** son?

* * *

 **REACTIONS?**

 **What about this one? Would it make it difficult to sleep at night if this nightmare was waiting for you?**

 **Now, _this_ one has a story behind it that I've been contemplating for a while. Months after the death of Dick's parents, just before his ninth birthday, the boy is struck with survivor's guilt. If he had jumped when he was supposed to, Dick would have fallen with his parents to their deaths. He begins to believe that because he lived this meant that he was a bad son. **

**What do you think? Would that be a story you would be interesting in reading one day?**


End file.
